With a withered, yellowed face, features inhabited by intense fear and terror, and a cry that resounded in the space of his house, the child “Tamim” rushed trembling, and settled in the bosom of his father, Muhammad Daoud, the moment the walls of his house shook at the sound of heavy Israeli shelling that targeted the “Al-Dawli” building adjacent to his house, in Gaza City Tuesday morning, the ninth of May.
In a moment, five-year-old Tamim’s tears fell down his cheeks, and the words froze in his throat and he did not utter a word. His father tried to give him warmth and tenderness in the “most secure place.”
His father says: “At the moment of the bombing, Tamim was sitting next to me. He usually sleeps on my lap, then I moved him on the bed. With the sound of the bombing, we were terrified, so he screamed loudly, then the smoke entered the house and the glass shattered over our heads.”
The father’s voice was punctured by pain as well as his features, adding, “We were in a state of panic, there were dead bodies and martyrs in front of you, and after half an hour I felt that Tamim had changed, his features and the color of his lips turned blue. I thought it was with fear, and he would calm down after a few moments.”
Fear and Anxiety
Tamim moved to his mother’s lap, but he remained trapped between fear and silence, despite his father’s attempt once again to get him out of the anxiety that swept his little boy’s heart.
With eyes shriveled by sadness, his father looks at those moments again: “I tried until six in the morning to calm him down, so he fell asleep in my lap, but he did not speak.
The family slept for several hours, after a night without sleep, Tamim opened his eyes to a new day that was not his usual energy and vitality, followed by pain he felt and suffocation in the chest, which was a sign that there was “something” with her. His father started calling doctors and relatives of his, who advised him When he was taken to the hospital, this coincided with his father’s car, when the child had convulsions.
The father points towards the chest area, with similar movements as the one that occurred in his child before his eyes: “He began to beat his heart with his hands and entered into a convulsive state.”
The car took only three minutes to reach the hospital, but the heart of “Tamim”, who was suffering from weakness, had stopped on the way.
The moment the pulse returned, as if life came to the father’s heart again, in front of the intensive care room, he was looking at his son motionless on the hospital bed from a glass window with only faint pulses moving from him, the doctors took pity on him and asked him to go home, they gave him doses of hope that “the child will remain under observation”.
Who revives the father’s heart?
Until 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday, Tamim’s father’s eyes were dry. He was aware that an unusual call at this time carried news coming from the hospital, he realized that it was moments of mourning awaiting confirmation from the caller who tried to smooth the news and ease the shock out of compassion in his heart, “May God give you patience and compensate you.”
All the father’s features were faded, except for a picture in which “Tamim” appears with his smile and the sparkle of his eyes, dressed in kindergarten clothes, printed on condolence posters that were hung on the walls of the mourning house, telling the story of a child who did not enjoy security in his father’s arms, and inside his house, because of the vibrations and explosions that reached him. The heart of every child living in the Gaza Strip.
Tamim was born suffering from a weak heart muscle. He underwent open-heart surgery when he was a six-month-old baby. His father kept visiting hospitals in the occupied territories, taking his treatments routinely and normally, and conducting periodic visits there, until the attending physician gave him news that brought joy to his heart. On December 17, 2022, when she told him: “Throw away the medicines, your son is now a normal person leading a normal life.”
Heartbreak and oppression emanate from his eyes and his father’s heart, commenting with a sigh of pain: “We are the ones whose heart is 100% healthy. We could not bear the sound of blows and vibrations, so we got tired. So how about the condition of my child’s weak heart? He will not receive the blow like us.”
Since the loss of “Tamim”, his sister “Judy”, who is two years older than him, has been living the fear of losing again. She stays in the bosom of her parents, fearing that she will lose them as well as her brother. She asks her parents to hold on in moments of grief when he overcomes them. In heaven, you will be afraid!” She continues to play alone, and soon loss overcomes her, too, searching for “Tamim” in an empty house of his presence.
